Guild Wars 2

So I finally want to get into WvW properly, and from what I’ve seen so far from playing myself, thieves aren’t the zerg-type. It’s picking people off beside your zerg, or roaming. Thing is I don’t quite know how to do that myself, can anyone give some general tips on how to roam? Thanks in advance for any advice!

Roaming just generally refers to running around by yourself (or in smaller groups if you’re a panzy) and picking off other roamers, capping supply camps and farming Dolyaks. There’s nothing really to it. Just do whatever you feel like really.

Roamers typically have slightly different builds than zerger, more focused on winning duels and small-scale fights. They tend to be much more offensive or condition-oriented.

Thieves make excellent roamers since stealth allows us to avoid and escape unfair fights and engage when it suits us.

Given the upcoming patch I don’t see a real alternative to condition-cheese. That means stacking up on Dire gear, Perplexity Runes and Rare Veggie Pizza and engaging in the most monotonous and boring aspects of GW2’s combat design. Condition spam…

With all the “cheese”, “pizza”, and “spam” makes me hungry.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

With all the “cheese”, “pizza”, and “spam” makes me hungry.

>.> I keep trying to get people to use the word “butter” instead of “cheese”… but no progress so far. Flood control isn’t helping .

Join the movement from cheesy to buttery!

How to roam:
Step 1: Find a friendly zerg.
Step 2: Switch to another map.

But seriously, Dee Jay covered the basics. You’re mostly going to be picking off stragglers and dolyaks, tapping on towers/keeps, flipping camps, etc. If you want to roam while still purposefully contributing to your server’s overall WvW strategy, look for situations where your zerg is fighting another zerg, then go camp the route between the enemy’s spawn point and the location of the battle so you can pick off enemy players running back to the fight. If you’re in a small group, look to cause some noise on the opposite side of the map that a friendly commander is working on to split the enemy’s attention or ninja some objectives if possible.

To answer the OP’s question;

Wreckless.5690:

So I finally want to get into WvW properly, and from what I’ve seen so far from playing myself, thieves aren’t the zerg-type.

You can still join a zerg if you want. With the Thieves mobility, you can easily catch up to anyone so that your zerg/pack can maul them as they try to run away.

Simply shadow step to the leading guy, drop caltrops, Infiltrator strike another, Dancing Dagger some other and scorp-wire another. Selective CC by a single profession = bags of loot for you and your zerg.

It’s picking people off beside your zerg, or roaming. Thing is I don’t quite know how to do that myself, can anyone give some general tips on how to roam? Thanks in advance for any advice!

zerg wing-man is way better and more fun. Roaming is boring.

Thanks for the replies guys. I’ve just jumped on in to see how it goes the past couple of nights.

About roaming being boring — Yeah I tried just running around but roaming is a very hit or miss thing. You could go quite awhile without seeing anybody, and if you do, sometimes it’s not favourable to go and engage. For zergs I just tend to bring out my SB to hit as many people as possible, as I haven’t been very successful -yet- in the zerg wing-man role. I do want to roam for sure for awhile, I think it’ll just make me a better thief player being on my own, learning when to engage, when to run, that kinda thing.

I just thought there was a more specific way people roam that I didn’t know about. But thanks for the tips!

Are you on TC? I think I have seen you around, add me if you need someone to roam with I can show you the ropes.

Let me teach you how to roam with 4 easy steps!

1. Get a full D/D berserker thief and run 30/30/0/0/10 or 25/30/0/0/15
2. Proceed to one shot the kitten out of everything
3. If you fail and get rekt blame anet for bad balance
4. Proceed to shout bullkitten as the enemy finishes you (if conditions in point 3 are met)

In all seriousness, just get 0/30/30/10/0 D/P or 10/30/0/0/30 S/P and cheese your way to victory.

tonkatsu.9067:

Are you on TC? I think I have seen you around, add me if you need someone to roam with I can show you the ropes.

No I’m on Piken actually But thanks for the offer though, that would’ve been awesome hehe.

Quite honestly… I think all that’s needed is practice. You might receive some advice, but when it comes down to something like this, it’s more about practice than advice. You will develop a play style that suites your roaming, how aggressive you are, where you roam, and how you respond to certain situations on your own given how well you know what you yourself are capable of. (Which btw is general PvP skill across all games…)

If you want to roam for scouting purposes:

And even then, information you gather should be tailored to your commander to help them make decisions for the zerg.

TL;DR: There’s no real guide to what you’re asking.

practice yes, but you can get some general outlines, if you are there to help your team and don’t just see it as a dueling ground where you have to actively seek out the duels.

-Yaks – if it’s red it’s dead. You as a thief have a unique ability to drop the yak even with people all around it, it will just take more guile.
-supply camps – if no Righteous Indignation, take it. You can solo them. Even the fully upgraded ones and ones with the hyleks or whatever there helping. Those just are tricky in comparison. only time this may not be of import is if you are trying to avoid any swords going up anywhere in there area (after a moment a supply camp will gain white swords behind it indicating someone or something(NPCS) are there causing trouble), but your commanders would hopefully let that be known in map as well as their voicecomm.
-You can take some shortcuts with the shortbow in quite a few places in the borderlands. I can’t list them all, and I doubt I know them all, but there are ones that shadowstep can reach that the arrow will not.

what zero day said sums it up best though, just dive in and it will all become clear within a month for the most part. Only you will know if you wanna dive into those two necros and a guardian, or 5 upleveled rangers (amusing and terribly frightening).

Well IMO the average skill level of the average WvWer is not great, it’s not because of the Zerg mentality though because PvP/WvW is designed to be rather casual.
Certain Roaming “Celebs” aren’t anymore skilled at small scale than those in the likes of the best WvW Guilds just because they run in smaller Groups – alot of players train in PvP and Roam aswell.

While roaming you will face different Builds and Groups of varied Numbers. More often than not you’ll face similar composed groups i.e mesmer, thief, ranger, guardian/warrior and eles, it becomes similar to those Melee Trains that the majority of big Guilds run.

Make sure to bring plentiful supply of food buffs and oils, and get your Applied Strength and Stacks if you have that.
Many may be specced into High Condition damage and or duration, or Damage that let’s them gank unexpecting players easily which can get frustrating.

As a Solo Roamer you will have to be on your toes, not only do you have to watch out for Zergs but also Group Gankers that don’t know Fair game.
We are also excellent Mobile Scouts on the field, Camp/Dolyak Snipers and we can escape even WITHOUT stealth most of the time.

The dueling Scene especially inside the OS is generally alot more organized without interruption though.

But I’ll also say as a well Known Thief Commander on my Server that you CAN be an important part of the Zerg, or even be on the frontlines if you have put together a good Build and play smart enough.
Unfortunately I don’t have a portfolio of Amazing Highlight Videos, but many from my WvW Community can vouch for me. :P